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What is Eclipse OpenJ9?
IBM donated their JVM (J9) to the Eclipse Foundation a few months ago.
Are they pushing a commit to github every time someone downloads something, or is this download_counter something else? https://github.com/AdoptOpenJDK/openjdk10-releases/commit/44...
That is an incredible catch. It does look like it pushes an update consistently a few times per hour it seems?
It's a good bot, we'll likely change this mechanism though :-)
I think the project is really needed, but I'm not sure it's quite ready yet. The OpenJDK 10 build shows 25 November 2017 as it's build date and is Linux and macOS only.
Is it really needed? Maybe I don't understand what it does, but what's the point of downloading openJDK there instead of directly from a package manager?
I think they mean OpenJDK is needed because it gives us an open source alternative to the proprietary Java or Oracle's JDK.
They're different builds. As far as I can tell, the openjdk builds by Debian for example are not and will not be TCK certified (due to a licensing problem if I understood correctly), whereas AdoptOpenJDK claims some builds are certified https://adoptopenjdk.net/support.html.

In my case the certification probably won't matter, we've been running with OpenJDK from debian for a long time without problems, but I'm curious to test the OpenJDK builds that use OpenJ9 to see if it can outperform Hotspot on some workloads.

Correct, the AdoptOpenJDK builds will pass the TCK as well as other industry test suites. We'll build both OpenJ9 and Hotspot derivatives (and some other esoteric ones as well). We hope to work with the distros to unify the OpenJDK stories there somewhat (but we have a lot of work to do first).
Why download OpenJDK manually when you can install it from the repos on every Linux?
(comment deleted)
Because not everyone uses Linux?
What's the point of avoiding the standard Java installer provided by Oracle then? I thought the only problem with it is that you are not allowed to put it in the distros or automate its downloading.
The Oracle JRE/JDK often includes commercial features that require premium licensing gated behind configuration parameters or command line parameters.

It's nice to be able to install a JDK where you won't be charged oodles of dollars just because you accidentally used the wrong command line argument.

Sounds crazy. Would you be so kind to provide an example?
It was all over the news:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/16/oracle_targets_java...

There's a XX:+UnlockCommercialFeatures switch which enables features like the Java Flight Recorder.

Other examples are the MSI Enterprise Installer and JRE Usage Tracking.

Since then, due to the bad press i suppose, Oracle has decided to open source most of these features (the others are retired). The Java Flight Recorder is not yet in the OpenJDK but AppCDS is already integrated in 10.
That's good to know, thanks!
Typing XX:+UnlockCommercialFeatures does not happen by accident.
It looks like Oracle will only provide binary releases for the LTS versions (after the regular 6 month release window) to paying customers: https://medium.com/codefx-weekly/no-free-java-lts-version-b8....
After going back and looking at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/eol-135779.html I noticed that it doesn't conflict with what you posted above. It specifically doesn't call out model for Java 11...

This may be nail in Java's coffin if this plays out as implied.

You mean the new year-based versioning system? I think it's not that bad (until they decide to introduce breaking changes). Indeed, Oracle giving Java EE away and switching to enterprise-hostile release cycle after watching peacefully at major browsers retiring Java applets support suggests it has lost interest in Java (but the trademark and, perhaps, some patents) but I still believe the JVM platform is still very far from its coffin as it provides great base for amazing aspiring languages like Scala and as Java itself keeps its pretty secure place among the most widely used languages.
This is one of the reasons why we created the build farm and will be producing LTS supported builds for OpenJDK. It will be a default place that people can go to get a professionally tested, TSK compliant OpenJDK binary. They can also still choose to go to a vendor for commercial support.
The quality and consistency of the OpenJDK binaries provided by the distros varies. We'll be working with the distros to help give them a consistent experience (they could for example use our infrastructure as code to add an extra level of testing.
Azul also ships builds of OpenJDK.

https://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/

Azul's builds are also TCK certified. They currently look like the best choice if you use Java and if you don't want to depend on Oracle's builds.
The AdoptOpenJDK releases are also TCK certified.
I've been using these for a while now and they seem to be pretty reliable so far.
Anybody use this? How does this compare to the OpenJDK versions that get bundled with the Heroku Java buildpack?
I have some hate toward Oracle because I have worked in databases and because I have learned unix with SunOS (and also because Oracle has ruined the security reputation of java applet). Concerning Java, I do not understand. It seems they are blocking updates for non paying customers, but at the same time Oracle is removing differences between OpenJDK builds and Oracle JDK binaries. Is Oracle good or evil (concerning java) ? Is java future doom ?
This is great! But a shame no 32-bit ARM, for (slightly) older/budget android devices.

Although android is a kinda java, many things aren't available, such as invokedynamic (only in Android 8+), and javadoc (uses javac).

This is not to mention the functional and other stuff in later javas.

Hi all,

I'm the chief cat herder over on AdoptOpenJDK. It is a build farm in progress with the end goal of providing OpenJDK LTS support (matching Oracle's timelines) for OpenJDK on all platforms that Java currently runs on (including ARM32/64, zos, AIX, z390 as well as Linux x86, Mac OS X, windows etc). Wee'll also support OpenJDK variants such as Eclipse OpenJ9, SAP OpenJDK, OpenJFX, and some of the early builds of experimental new features.

It's also an infrastructure as code project so OpenJDK vendors have a common place to shared build technology and workflows. For example we currently have IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, SAP and other vendor engineers working on this.

The release builds will be TCK tested, as well as a variety of other common industry test suites. The quality level will be as high if not higher than existing vendors today.

I appreciate there's probably a lot of confusion (especially as this is still a work in progress) so please fire questions my way!